The World Outside As Snobs

Ex-pat Life

Foreign snobbery is universal but ‘words can never hurt me’

Check out the publication, Perehelion Peregrinations. Just as traveling close to the sun would be bound to be full of adventurous tales — should we live to tell it! — so we should expect when traveling through life and its various intersections abroad, with people, places, and times. Check back often or follow the publication for more stories like this. Thank you for visiting!

This is part of a series of ex-pat stories in a foreign country — the maddening, curious, or interesting moments and encounters during the everyday normal activities. This is just one of many stories for you to enjoy.

I have rarely ever cried or shed tears in front of my partner. Intentionally, I have avoided appearing weak; I am known between us and among family not to be the most squeamish, delicate kind, generally speaking. I used to think gender shouldn’t preclude one from doing work considered tough or inglorious nor prevent one from attempting business generally reserved for a specific gender or group, but after some time now outside the bubble of my home country (Western and highly developed), I have come across an entirely different world out here that operates under completely separate and unfair rules. In Asia, there is no propriety when it comes to your personal space nor information including your age. It is commonplace to be asked your age or to ask about it when greeting or meeting people here. Wealth and success is flaunted here ostentatiously; the public is enamored incessantly with any prospective street performer who may become the next celebrity pop star and easily swoon and gather in front of any guitar-strumming hopeful.

For some reason, on the way out after a brief meeting with another couple interested in purchasing the apartment we were tenants in, I couldn’t control my emotions. They had long gone, but I was still processing in my mind the discussions and events that had just taken place and started feeling angry and dejected at the same time. I analyzed in my mind what was implied by what the female had said, and it felt like she was thumbing her nose at us for not being the ones to purchase the flat ourselves which she must have assumed we weren’t given the…

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